


Fast as You Can

by ricketyrunt



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, One Shot, Sandor to the Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 15:55:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13414629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ricketyrunt/pseuds/ricketyrunt
Summary: Because being snowed in in NC has made me itchy and distracted..just a little mind cleaning one-shot.





	Fast as You Can

**Author's Note:**

> Because being snowed in in NC has made me itchy and distracted..just a little mind cleaning one-shot.

Sandor was sitting on the dusty floor, his long legs crossed beneath him, oiling his mail. He supposed he should have come to expect the gentle rapping at his door. It seemed that near every night for the past moon’s turn or so, a little bird pecked at the heavy oaken door of his chambers sometime past the hour of the bat. When the gentle knock came, he stilled his movements entirely, a deep breath held in the swell of his massive chest as he weighed his next move. The gentle rolling of her slender knuckles came again, and so Sandor threw the stained oil cloth on the pile of his armor, exhaling a lengthy sigh of defeat.

When he slowly pulled the door open, Sansa was posed to knock yet again, slumping forward as her fist moved toward it’s target. “Oh, well…” She stumbled a bit before catching herself against the door frame, straightening her spine and shaking her unpinned tresses off her shoulders. Her peach colored lips parted as if to speak, but her gaze gave her away. Sansa’s stormy blue eyes trailed down the open neck of his tunic, to the thumb he had hooked in the loosened waist of his breeches. Her pale and freckled face was tinged pink with her obvious desire, her chest heaving against her deep blue sleeping gown.

“Sansa…” His voice was weary with exhaustion, having found himself in the exact same place night after night, turning his little bird away. “Why must you continue on with this farce? What must I do to end this?” He searched her upturned face with his steely gaze, his resolve to be her sworn shield (and nothing more) straining under her determination. Sansa twined her fingers into the loose hanging ties of his tunic, her fierce stare unwavering as she held him there. They had been here before, many nights, and Sandor feared that denying Sansa Stark was ultimately futile. She would be his undoing.

The first night she knocked, Sandor found a barely dressed and flushed Sansa on the other side of the door, begging entrance into his bed. He had reacted as he was most comfortable; mistrust and angst.  He was sure the angry tirade, wrought with self-loathing and sharp words, would be enough to keep her away. Sandor won a few easy evenings to himself after that, convinced he had shown her the folly of her interest in a man like him. But she returned a few nights later, her eyes wild and her hair tousled and unpinned, as if she hadn’t rested in days. He suspected she hadn’t. His own sleep had been fitful and plagued by her eager kisses and bold caresses. He woke up feeling cold and bereft, saddened by the realization that she had merely been a dream. She opened a door he wouldn’t allow himself passage through; a dog wasn’t worthy of Winter’s Princess, after all. He wanted to drag her to the bed, taking from her every intimacy she would share with him. She wore her desire plainly, yet Sandor knew protecting her meant keeping his own basic needs in check. And much to his silent torment, she had come to him every evening since, near begging for his attention.

Sandor tried reason, tried telling Sansa things she already knew, that their union was inherently ill-fated. He tried expounding on the myriad impossibilities of status and nobility that would make their union untenable.  Sandor tried feigning indifference, but Sansa’s persistent pawing at his door had awakened his squire who merely gave his masters a queer, appraising nod before closing his door. Sandor even tried confession, telling her of his deep affections for her that tormented him just the same, and still he was no better match for her. That last tactic had only made things worse. The little bird saw the vulnerability in him as he gently held her hands, whispering bittersweet words into her ears as the tears rolled silently down her cheeks. His own grey eyes were dark and serious and he wicked away her sadness with the roughened pads of his thumbs before he quietly closed-and barred-the door to his chamber.

Sansa leaned against the wall, her hands aflame and clutched to her chest. He had denied her, but in his denial of her advances was his admission of love for her. After all, he had promised he would never lie to her.

“Is this the way of it then?” She slapped a pale hand against the door as he turned to close it behind himself. Sansa’s motion was not nearly enough to keep him from closing the door if he truly wanted, but her wild eyes and the resounding snap of her skin on wood froze him in place. “You get to run my husband down and then deny me your attentions? Am I truly just a bird in a cage waiting for some _lord_ to seek my claim?”

“I’ve always told you the world was unfair, _little bird_.” He had sunk his steel into her husband’s chest, true, but he had had enough listening to Harry the fucking Heir demean and raise his hand to the girl. It rang too close to a time when Sandor had not been so willing to do what he knew to be right. He had been a deadly weapon under Joffrey, there could be no doubt, but the years in between that saw him a more patient and level-headed man, honed into something more precise and efficient. He had a new mistress who embodied every bit of her noble house’s sense of honor, a mistress whose directives aligned so snugly with his morality. It seemed to Sandor that he was sworn to protect the little bird since he disappeared her from the capital to take refuge with her aunt, promising that no one would ever hurt her again.

She had begged him not to kill Harry after the first time he hit her, splitting her lip open in an all too familiar gesture for the pair. Her blue eyes were swollen with tears, her hair matted to her forehead as she stood before him in a torn shift. He clenched his jaw as he fixed his gaze on her husband’s drunken, slumbering form in the bedroom behind her.

“I promise, Sandor, I’m fine, really. He-he didn’t mean it. He-I provoked him.” She looked down at her bare feet, clenching her toes against the floor, a dead giveaway for her lies. “Please, it will mean more trouble for us if we need to run again. What if Petyr has you sent you through the Moon Door? What will become of me then?”

“Aye, as you say, little bird.” It had taken him some long minutes to stand down, lowering his gaze to her. She was trembling fiercely with fear and adrenaline before him. He huffed out a sigh and drew her under his cloak, pressing her to his side. “Come, I’ll see you to your chambers.” Sandor felt her warm arm curl around his waist and her palm against his chest. He felt like the bird, draping a protective wing over his little love. She gave him a grateful squeeze and he pressed his lips into the crown of her head.

Their nights continued on like that for several moons, Sandor finding himself less and less inclined to let her prick of a husband live. Harry was not discreet in his affairs with the various women of the Vale, having fathered many bastards. Petyr had left to begin rebuilding Winterfell after the Knights of the Vale took the keep back from the Boltons. Sandor was the only thing that stood between Sansa and Harry’s drunken rages. He stood by one night as he listened to the familiar scene unfolding behind the door. Harry was irate about something or another, stomping around the poor bird chirping courtesies at him, trying to soothe his rage. Usually, Harry wound up passing out before he could get too carried away, but that night, Harry dragged a screaming girl into his bed.

Sandor only hesitated a moment. He had seen enough in war to know what force sounded like. He shouldered the massive door off its hinges and closed the distance between himself and Harry in two swift strides. He couldn’t say when he had drawn his broadsword or if Sansa had begged him to stop. He only knew that taking the light out of The Young Falcon made for the sweetest kill he ever had.

Once the bruises healed and the gossip and speculation quelled to a dull roar, Sansa’s hero worship for Sandor grew unchecked. From a young girl’s reverence for strength to a broken widow’s need, Sandor knew not how to treat the girl. He felt her gaze upon him incessantly, stoking his own growing lust. He struggled to keep his inclinations at bay, struggled to keep from drinking or fucking or killing. And then she began the nightly pilgrimage to his chambers.

So, it was there again in his doorway that he found himself so vulnerable to the girl, pulling her into his embrace, meeting her eager mouth heatedly. He grasped at her, his fingers fumbling with the smooth, pearlescent buttons of her nightdress. Sansa broke their kiss, panting as she deftly shrugged the garment off, leaving him to remove his own clothing.

It seemed their nakedness, warmly lit by the flickering of candles and the dying hearth, sobered them out of their passionate fog. He couldn’t move, afraid that if he did, the beautiful apparition before him would dissipate into the night like so much smoke. “Gods, Sansa.”

“What?” Her voice was small, uncertain, her hands fidgeting at her sides.

“You’re truly more beautiful that I could ever have imagined.” When he reached his open hands to her, she pressed herself to his bare chest. Their mouths met again, slower this time, until they both tumbled backward onto his bed. She was nibbling on her bottom lip, a tick that drove him mad with desire, but rather than kiss her breathless again, he held her face gently between his massive hands. Drawing long sweeping arcs across her jaw with his thumb, he forced her to match his steely gaze. “Sansa, if you give yourself to me, I’ll not be able to stand by as another man takes you. People will talk, they’ll see you as the Hound’s bitch, they’ll make snide remarks about their new Queen in the North. They’ll think you’ve lowered yourself to be with the likes of me.”

Sansa smirked, wrapping her delicate hands around his wrists, pressing kisses to the softer skin below his palm. “Winter is coming, my love.” She arched a brow at him, rocking against him to lay a kiss on his scarred cheek. “The fools will have more important things to worry about than who I take into my bed.”

Sandor felt her smiling against his mouth as he drew her flush against himself, melting into one another. Sansa found her way to him every night after that, and every night Sandor made his little bird sing.


End file.
